This invention relates to a compliant earseal for sealing the region between the earcup shell of a sound-attenuating earcup assembly and a wearer's head, as well as to an earcup assembly incorporating such a seal.
Earcup assemblies for attenuating ambient sound in noisy environments, such as in or around military helicopters or other aircraft, are known in the art. Such assemblies are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,190,973, 3,470,564, 3,875,592 and 3,943,572, issued to applicant Jackson A. Aileo and owned by the assignee herein. As shown in the first patent identified above, the earcups of such assemblies may house earphones to allow communication or monitoring of the ambient sound.
Earcup shells of the prior art conventionally comprise a shell fitted with a planar annular flange for receiving a compliant earpad or earseal. One of the problems experienced with such earcups of the prior art is that, because of the nonplanar contour of the head in the region of the ear, the earpad does not form an effective seal around the entire periphery of the pad without excessive pressure. Previous expedients have included forming the flange with a complementary contour to assure a better match between the earseal and the wearer's head. While this expedient ameliorates the situation somewhat, it does not overcome the fact that the facial contours of different individuals, and hence the complementary matching contours, vary widely.